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Page after page, report after report, nothing I could see would hold up to Morgan. Whether he truly held sway against our own kind or not, nothing short of the chance Division had given me would do it. And it was the one thing I wasn’t sure I could do.
“Can I help?”
Emily’s words startled me and I looked up, surprised to find her standing in the doorway of the library. How long had she been there?
She took a few tentative steps forward. “I need something to do,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. “I can’t just sit here, when they might be… when Brianna…”
I closed the folder on the desk in front of me. “I understand.” I was feeling helpless, too. “I was only going through some financials, some of the intel they’ve gathered on Morgan’s doings.”
She nodded, coming closer. “Any luck?”
She wasn’t going to come right out and ask me what we planned to do. She knew I couldn’t tell her, even if I’d wanted to. And, honestly, I had no idea what Brendan’s plans were.
“There’s a lot to go through,” I offered. “You’re welcome to join me.”
She let out a relieved breath and sat opposite me in a large brocade reading chair, the desk between us. “Great. Where do I start?”
I passed a folder over, the contents innocuous enough even if it was fifty pages of small print. “We’re looking for anything suspicious, anything that might indicate a strike point or strategy.”
She stared up at me. “You mean you think he’s going to attack you.”
“The Division,” I corrected. “Morgan has a personal vendetta against me, but the Division is his only true adversary. The one group with the knowledge of his legitimacy and the means to stop him.” The one group that would challenge his rule.
Her brows drew together, and I thought she meant to say something, but she nodded slowly and looked down at the folder in her lap. I watched her as she settled in to her task, the truth in my words falling away from the rest in my mind.
No one else did understand the threat. No one but Council and the Division understood the importance of this decision. Council had already fallen to Morgan. I didn’t think I had ever truly believed it possible, in all the years I’d been taught the prophecy. How could Council, the entity that raised me, the being that embodied our entire history, fall apart? But it had. It had been taken down. And the Division was next.
I had to do something, I knew that. But even if I managed to reach Morgan, if I somehow overtook him, tricked him, stabbed him in the heart the first instant I came close enough, nothing would be solved. The Council was in ruin, there would be no reconciliation between the lines, and all that awaited was the end of days.
But Morgan did have sway against his own. And if I reached him, he could turn me. Brendan’s pleading tore at me.You are our only chance.
So that was it, then. It was the union or nothing. It didn’t matter that I didn’t want reign over Council, over all our kind. It was the only way.
My eyes involuntarily found Emily, feet propped on the desk as she turned page after page and scanned through the addresses. It had always seemed like the last option, the final, never-to-be-used backup plan, but deep down I didn’t doubt I would have surrendered to the Division and created the union with Brianna all along if I’d needed to. If it meant saving the world. But now, watching Emily, it seemed like more of a sacrifice than I remembered.
I would be bound to Brianna.
But it wouldn’t be long, would it? In two days, I was likely to die at the hands of Morgan. I might save the others, I might give them all a chance, but there wasn’t any guarantee I would make it. There was no way to know if Morgan would use his sway to turn me against those I’d meant to protect in some sick notion of rightfulness.
There wasn’t a surety of anything.
It was the best I could do, though. The best chance at keeping them both from harm.
Emily reclined in the chair, and I couldn’t help but think of the first night I’d held her in my arms. This time, I didn’t stare at my boots. I let my eyes roam over her, memorizing every part, lingering on the line of her neck, the curve of her lips. I could still see the way the sunrise colored her face through the hotel window, could still recall the sweet scent of her shampoo.
A horrified, “No,” slipped from Emily’s lips and then her feet fell from the desk to land hard on the floor beneath her. She was suddenly standing, staring at me. Terrified.
“What is it?” I asked, around the desk before I’d had time to process her reaction.
The folder fell away, and only the stack of papers remained in her hand, thirty or so pages back.
“Emily, what?” I begged.
Her eyes fell to the paper, her other hand pointing to a small, insignificant line. It was an address, a city southwest of here. I didn’t understand the connection.
“My mother,” she whispered. “Oh no, no, no—”
I grabbed her arms, gave her a firm shake to make her look at me.
“This address, this is where we lived…” She looked sick. “When my mother was taken.”
